


The Sky is Falling

by DarthSuki



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hypnotism, Light-Hearted, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 23:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15278514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthSuki/pseuds/DarthSuki
Summary: Kara decides to let herself and Alice enjoy the festivities of a local carnival while they’re on the run. It’s a little risky, considering the circumstances, but Kara can’t say no when it makes Alice look so happy.When the two of them come upon a stage showcasing some run-of-the-mill hypnotism, Kara is sure nothing wrong can come from it: androids can’t be hypnotized, after all.She was, in a word, wrong.





	The Sky is Falling

**Author's Note:**

> This was commissioned by an anonymous reader on my Detroit: Become Human writing blog! If you would like to see all the other stuff I have on the blog or request something yourself, [you can check it out here!](https://detroitbecomehumanwritings.tumblr.com/)

In hindsight, Kara really should have thought about the decision a little bit more.

But ‘should’ is a word with its own issues, neglecting the reasons that she had allowed her and Alice to step into the fairgrounds, slide into the crowd, and raise their hands when the host had asked for volunteers in the very first place. Truly, Kara really  _ should _ have considered her decisions with a bit harsher of a lens--but in that same moment, all she could focus on was the wide, happy grin of the small child holding her hand.

Alice looked like what a little girl should look like: happy. That was enough for Kara to say yes, to let Alice drag her into the bustling fair, take her from booth to booth and, eventually, set her attention on one very peculiar stage.

Two men, one standing in front of the other--it was clear to see who was the host of the event. His colorful tuxedo practically commanded the attention of the crowd, his hair slicked back and carefully groomed. Through the bustle of the interested bodies around them, it was hard for even Kara to pick up on the item that the host held in his hand. The glint of gold, the swinging motion, it eventually clicked in her head.

A pocket watch, hanging from a chain between his fingers. It swung lazily, one side to the other by the man’s careful motions. All the while, he spoke outwardly to the crowd.

“The wonders of the human mind!” He said, something a step short of a shout. “Who else thinks that they would care to come on stage and feel the mystical effects of suggestion? Who here is brave enough to see?”

As the man turned to gently whisper to the other, waking him from his half-dazed state, Kara realized that they had arrived just as they were going to welcome new volunteers onto the stage. When she felt a tug on the sleeve of her jacket, Kara couldn’t bring herself to be surprised; she turned to meet the wide, sparkling gaze of the small girl next to her.

“Kara,” Alice said, her words filled with wonder. “Could we go up? Please? This sounds really cool--” She began to hop, still holding onto Kara’s sleeve. “-I wanna get hypnotized! I wanna get hypnotized!”

Safety should have been the first thing on the android’s mind. She should have simply said ‘no’, explained to Alice that it wasn’t a good idea to put themselves on the stage like that (literally and metaphorically). She wanted to explain dearly how much it was a risk, but….

Alice looked so excited.

Kara felt herself smile as she thought it over, rationalizing the risk down to a level that felt perfectly acceptable. What would it hurt? She would just let Alice go up and have her fun--it wasn’t as if Kara herself could get hypnotised anyway. Yes, that was a good plan, a perfect middle-ground between the need for safety and the desire to see Alice happy.

Among the few people who raised their hands in volunteer to be hypnotized, Kara tried to push away the feeling of eyes settling on her.

“It looks like we have some brave souls!” The host shouted, his voice oozing showmanship and drama. “Alright now, would all of you come onto the stage? Don’t be shy now, just to the left and up the stairs!”

In total, five people moved to step onto the stage, lining up loosely beside the man. Other than Kara and Alice, there were two boys and one girl, all of them young-looking but still several years older than Alice was.

Kara tried to meet their curious eyes with a smile, internalizing the thought  _ I’m her mother, I’m just her mother, there’s nothing strange about this at all. _

It was hard to fight the little messages of worry that settled in the back of her thoughts, but Kara smothered them over by glancing down at Alice. They held hands as the host began to explain the process, dramatically explaining hypnotism and its effect on the mind, the influence and thensome that seemed to awe and boggle the audience plenty enough.

But Kara stared at the watch, hanging on the end of a gold chain the man held from his hand. It hung there, all the while that he said his rehearsed speech, and Kara couldn’t move herself from looking at it. It was nothing special, no discernable markings that she could pull to identify it by brand, but it glittered all the same when the rays of light hit it.

She didn’t realize that the process had started until a few seconds after the watch began to sway.

“Focus on the watch,” The man said, his voice just above a whisper, loud enough for Kara and the other volunteers to hear him properly. “Watch it sway, back and forth--keep your eyes on the motion. It is slow and even--you can feel your breathing slowing, nice and even.”

The commands, for all intents and purposes, were nothing more than hollow words. They shouldn’t have had an effect on Kara at all.

“You’re feeling warm and heavy, the sun is making you feel so warm and heavy, your breathing as slow and even as the sway of the watch.”

Kara’s eyes stared hard at the swinging object, hearing the man’s voice as it moved back and forth….back and forth….. _ back and forth…. _

“You’re starting to feel relaxed,” The man said. “You’re not tired, but you’re relaxed. The watch is comforting, soothing, and with each time it rocks, you are feeling more and more relaxed.”

The world felt a little numb around Kara. The crowd was no more than a jumble of shapes and colors, the stage nothing more than a solid pressure against the bottom of her feet. Her thoughts, though still concrete and cohesive, seemed somewhat unimportant.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

She could almost hear the sway of the watch in her head. She felt warm. Relaxed.

Despite having no need to breathe, Kara felt conscious about it, her chest slowly rising and falling in even, long motions that her thoughts carefully commanded to the constant sway of the golden glint in her eyes.

“You are getting more and more relaxed, with every breath, you can feel heavier and more relaxed.”

Soon, the only thing that existed in the world was the watch.

It swayed and swung, back and forth, Kara’s eyes watching its every move. The words of the man was an echo in her thoughts, a gentle whisper of persuasion that she was only vaguely aware of--she felt so  _ comfortable. _

Her thoughts were calm, her subroutines were silent, the error messages that had been clinging to her worry--gone. Or at least, they were dull, numbed by the gentle persuasion of the man’s soft voice and the gently-swaying watch in front of her eyes.

\---

Alice didn’t know what it would feel like. She had a vague understanding of hypnotism, but that was largely what she was able to read about in magazines and books, since Todd had never much let her watch television. It reminded her of Alice in Wonderland, one of her favorite book series--it felt right, after all, since she and Kara had already been dropped into their own fantastical adventure together. 

They had run away from home, together, like the heroes from her story books. Though sometimes it was scary, Alice could always depend on Kara to stay with her, forever, and they could get through anything.

Being hypnotized felt like she was getting sleepy. Her limbs felt heavy and her thoughts felt thick, weighing too much in her head. Alice could hear the man as he spoke, her mind whirling over every little suggestion until she too felt relaxed, eyes half-lidded and loosely in a daze.

She felt scared--not too much, but enough that she could feel the thoughts biting at the back of her mind. Nevertheless, Alice felt the gentle grip of Kara’s hand over her own. Though she had no body heat to speak of, the activities and the sunshine had warmed Kara’s skin--her hand felt warm over Alice’s own, and Alice didn't feel afraid anymore.

\---

“Wonderful,” Kara heard the man say, a wonder in his voice as he took in the sight of the volunteers. One of them hadn’t been able to fall under--one of the boys--so he simply left the stage. The man let him leave before he continued, eyes bright as he spoke again. “With every breath, you feel more and more relaxed...yes….just like that. I’m going to snap my fingers in a few seconds. When I do, you will feel as though you are a beautiful singer. The audience is here to watch your show-”

Kara heard his words, felt them slot into her thoughts like a puzzle pieces.

...

DATA….UPLOADING…

***SYSTEM REFRESH***

**DESIGNATION:** MUSICAL PERFORMER

 

She felt the shift in her programming, the gentle lilt of priorities and focus as the words hit deep inside of Kara’s chest.

_ Singer. _

And then, all she registered was the snap of fingers. Everything suddenly changed.

It didn’t change completely--somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, Kara was still very aware of her surroundings. It was as if she had the knowledge bottled up, tucked away neatly only to be worn again at a later time. In the moment however, her world was different, if only slightly.

The audience was there to hear her show. There were flickers across her vision as she stepped forward, her hand loosely falling from Alice’s gentle grip as she too fell under the comforting haze of the hypnosis.

She opened her mouth and sang.

Though Kara was not built to be a performer, it wasn’t hard to modulate her voice perfectly, hit notes that would require years of careful practice for any human to achieve with such ease. She sang a sweet, haunting lullaby, one that she faintly wondered if she had sang before, to Alice.

The words seemed to drift through the crowd beyond the foot of the stage, their eyes glittering in awe and wonder. 

\---

Alice couldn’t sing. She knew that she’d never tried, never practiced, never had all that much of a love for it regardless. It was a fact that even a young girl like Alice could understand, which is why she felt such a thin thread of confusion when what came out of her mouth sounded beautiful. It wasn’t as loud as the other two volunteers beside her, and it certainly didn’t capture the attention of the crowd as much as Kara, but it was beautiful all the same.

She followed the lead of her caregiver from the background, following behind the melody of the soft lullaby with a clarity of tone and rhythm that would have made anyone else assume that she had been trained.

_ Why could she sing? _

Alice was dimly aware of the question as it played through the back of her thoughts. It was there, pressing, but it barely mattered when the rest of herself was focused on what her brain wanted to focus on--as if it was compelled, prioritized to do so. She was a  _ rock star _ and she was singing to her fans. She was on stage and singing her heart out for them.

She was a  _ rock star. _

\---

It only lasted for a minute at most. The host reigned them in easily enough, drawing them back into the natural state of relaxation, ready for another gentle nudge of a show for the audience.

In hindsight, that is when Kara should have left. She could have pulled herself from the haze at any moment, acted the part of a mother awed but nonetheless done with the whole performance. She should have left then, but she didn’t, content with the heavy comfort that seemed to wash over her body as the host went through another series of gentle commands.

All the while, the watch swung, back and forth, over and over again.

They were made to think they were comedians, then that they were fashionistas strutting about the stage--onward and onward, thing to thing, until it seemed that the audience had begun to grow bored with it all. 

All the while, Kara could feel her system shifting with each command, her program carefully attuning itself to what was asked of her--it should have scared her, the realization that she too could be influenced, but she could still feel Alice’s joy in the experience. The young girl seemed almost to exude the feeling--Kara was nearly convinced that she could feel it bubbling in her own thoughts.

\---

The last suggestion was supposed to be silly, something to make the audience laugh and leave the volunteers feeling ever-so-slightly embarrassed, but entertained all the same.

“When you hear the phrase ‘the sky is falling’, you will feel yourself become a chicken,” The man’s voice seemed to slice through the air so easily, cutting through thoughts and distractions--it was the only thing Kara could focus on. “You live a peaceful life free in a pasture, and when you hear my snap a second time, you will become normal again.”

Kara felt her program shifting to accommodate the suggestion before she could stop it.

...

DATA….UPLOADING…

***SYSTEM REFRESH***

**DESIGNATION:** CHICKEN?

ERROR! 

eRrOR!

NO COMMAND AVAILABLE

***SYSTEM REFRESH FAIL***

Kara filtered through the numerous error messages that popped up in her thoughts, closing one after another until she was forced out of the haze she’d been so carefully dropped into. She shook her head after a moment, blinking her eyes and taking it all in, as thoughts cleared.

What….had happened?

And then she heard the man’s voice ring out, bold and loud.

“The sky is falling!” 

Beside her, the remaining three volunteers, including Alice, quickly fell into a small group of chaos. Kara backed away, no longer hypnotised, to watch it unfold with a slightly-forced smile while she collected her thoughts.

She didn’t realize she could be hypnotized. At all. It was a fact that she had never considered, she so different from a human that it, theoretically, should be impossible.

Nevertheless.

She pulled herself from the worry to glance at the still-hypnotized group of kids, watching each of them stomp around in some vague attempt to act like a chicken. They clucked, they flapped their arms, the closest they could act of a small fowl for the fact that they were, well, humans to begin with. 

Kara did her best to enjoy the sight, standing a bit off to the side and out of the attention of the audience. She tried to smile, but she could feel a pressure nudging at the edge of her mind. A dull, small pressure that she felt more curious than cautious about.

When she reached out to touch the little presence within the error messages she was still sifting through, everything suddenly shifted. Her vision, her smell, her hearing--it was as if she was in the haze all over again, but aware and conscious of it. She could see the grassy field, smell the fresh air, feel the warm sun and--

Was she...seeing through Alice’s eyes?

Kara didn’t have the time to second-guess her assumption. She could feel a familiar push against her mind, pressing even more of the vision, the experience into her system. The colors grew saturated and the sounds seemed louder still.

There was only a dim knowledge of herself in the background, seeing the world through the eyes who...genuinely thought they were a chicken? How was Kara able to see it so literally? It was almost surreal, feeling the same unconscious responses, the same programming queues that she herself did in the first few prompts of the hypnosis.

Kara didn’t dwell on what it meant.

Instead, she focused on letting herself see the world through Alice’s eyes, how the gentle persuasion and provoking of her creative thoughts had created such a colorful little world in her eyes. The audience was forgotten in the heavy haze, the stage little more than a grassy outcropping--she could even catch glances of the other two volunteers in Alice’s vision, two more chickens going about their day with a flutter of feathers and a too-human attempt at chicken noises.

When Kara felt herself gently pulling from her young companion’s experience, she found herself smiling; such a simple joy, a moment of genuine amusement to watch the scene unfold before her as if there wasn’t a care or worry in the world to be had.

But it didn’t last for very long.

The young girl looked at the host, then to the audience, and hopped in place before opening her mouth and letting out--

_ The most realistic screech of a chicken she ever heard. _

And then, in the span of a second, Kara’s conscious was completely back in her own mind. Cold fear filled her thoughts as she moved.

The android didn’t know why she reacted so quickly, stepping forward and pressing a hand to Alice’s shoulder to pull her back before the thoughts could catch up with her actions. All she could feel was fear, the distinct press of eyes on her and Alice both.

She pulled Alice off the stage with a forced laugh, trying to make up an excuse.

“Oh my daughter’s getting a bit too rambunctious!” Kara mimicked something silly, something she may have read in a magazine or from a television show. “I don’t need her bringing all that energy back home you know!”

It was stupid, silly, and endlessly dangerous. Even as Kara hurried herself and Alice away from the stage, away from the prying eyes and confused looks, she chastised herself for letting it happen at all. She could only barely make out the sound of the host’s voice, something about a phrase, but it became all too dim as the two of them hurried deep into another crowd of people and disappeared from sight.

Her voice modulation, Alice’s...Alice’s something, it was all too weird, too strange to play off as something stupid--Human’s simply couldn’t change their voices like that, even while hypnotised.

When the two of them stopped walking, they were alone again, two strangers in a loose group of strangers, people simply enjoying the fair. Nobody was watching them.

And by then, Alice had entirely snapped out of her haze, now looking at Kara with concern in her eyes.

“Kara, did we do something wrong?”

There was a moment of silence, but Kara couldn’t bring herself to settle into her panic. It was just a fair, just a random event, just a random stage with random people. Nothing to be worried about.

“Oh no,” the android said, taking a moment to kneel down beside the young girl. “I just--got a little stage fright is all. I’m not used to being looked at like that--” she laughed, the sound only half-forced that time. “And weren’t you a little embarrassed about being a chicken?”

“No!” Alice said, her expression quickly melting into something akin to joy. “That was actually a lot of fun! I felt like a rock star and--and then I thought I was an airplane, and then--” 

Alice continued to ramble, her words melting together to Kara’s ears. That was a relief, a comfort. She couldn’t remember the last time she had heard Alice speak so openly before, with such excitement and….like she was a normal girl. A happy, normal girl.

Kara took Alice’s hand in hers again, nodding along to everything she said. The sun was still high, with plenty more hours of the day to enjoy some of the booths of the fair--albeit without any hypnotism involved, at least.

As long as it made Alice happy.

* * *

The memories of the fair were still somewhat fresh in Kara’s mind, even months after the odd series of events. She gave it only a little thought from time to time, largely when it came to realizing and accepting that Alice was an android just like herself. It had been just another hint, another detail Kara had brushed away to further the vision of Alice being a human child.

Nevertheless, their maternal bond hadn’t faded. If anything, Kara looked back on moments like those with a dull amusement, a fact that she and her daughter (for all purposes of the term) had been through so much together in their journey for freedom and happiness.

Living with Rose and her family was nothing short of wonderful. The woman had been kinder than she had any obligation to be, and the months had brought nothing short of joy and fulfillment to the lives of all the androids she had taken in. Kara, Alice, Luther and the others had found a new life from her and they were extremely grateful.

They were having a little party together, sun setting in the background of the casual festivities when it happened; Kara was having a conversation with Rose on the back porch, and Alice was playing in the yard. The radio played softly in the background, just finishing a song and shifting to a commercial of some sort.

Kara was halfway through a thought when she heard the words:

“And watch out for that crazy weather next week! You’re almost gonna think that **the sky is falling** !”

Before anyone could figure out what was going on, Kara froze. She felt the familiar lock-up of her programming to the familiar words, the push of a command that didn’t quite work--

And from the backyard came a loud, hyper-realistic screech of a chicken.


End file.
